Although Luo Zhixue did not deliberately have more children in the past twenty years, who allowed him to have more concubines?
And most of the concubines in the harem want to give birth to a prince, whether it is for themselves or for the sake of their natal family behind them, and the mother is more valuable than the son.
Of course, not everyone has this opportunity. After all, there are hundreds of concubines in the Chu Empire, but there is only one Luo Luozhixue.
These hundreds of concubines refer specifically to the women Luo Zhixue has favored, and there are many more who have not...
Among so many women, not everyone can be favored by Luo Zhixue, and most of the women who have been favored by Luo Zhixue only have a few times... can really be favored for a long time, or be favored for a period of time. There are actually very few women.
It is actually not easy for those concubines in the harem who are not frequently favored to have a child... After all, you can't have a child just by sharing the same bed, and there is such a thing as the ovulation period.
If you are favored at the wrong time, no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to give birth...
Under such circumstances, the proportion of concubines in the harem who can become pregnant is actually relatively small among the many women in the harem.
After pregnancy, some people still have miscarriages due to various reasons... Even if the delivery is successful, a very small number of people will have difficulty in giving birth... maybe one or two people will die.
Considering the current medical level, even the princes and daughters of the Chu Empire may not be able to grow up smoothly.
Over the years, Luo Zhixue has actually lost quite a few children. Although Luo Zhixue is sad, medical technology is what it is and there is nothing he can do about it.
And this was actually the result of more than ten years of continuous development after he innovated medical technology and brought new scientific medical concepts to the Chu Empire.
If it was before the innovation of medical technology, such as in the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that half of Luo Zhixue’s children might not survive to adulthood...
Why is the average life span in ancient times said to be low?
It is not only because of natural disasters and man-made disasters that adults do not live long, but more importantly, the death rate of children is too high.
In an ordinary family with ten or eight children, two or three may not survive to adulthood.
Even in the royal family with the best medical protection, there are occasional cases of pregnant women dying in childbirth and infant deaths, not to mention the private sector.
If you want to be like future generations, the average life span can reach more than 70 years... For the contemporary Chu Empire, it is estimated that we will not see it until Luo Zhixue dies.
After all, Luo Zhixue does not have any confidence that he can lead the Great Chu Empire to a technological level equivalent to that of the 21st century while he is alive. After his death, his successor will probably have to develop step by step for many years. .
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Under today's medical conditions, it is not easy for Luo Zhixue to save more than thirty children.
As the children grow up, the older children will move out and even start a family.
Especially for the prince, according to a series of prince raising and education measures personally formulated by Luo Zhixue, the prince can live with his mother before he is six years old, and there is no school setting... Of course, the concubines are worried about their children's education, and then educate them themselves. It is also possible for children to read and recognize words.
After reaching the age of six, you will enroll in the Royal Lecture Hall established in the palace and begin to receive formal royal education. The teachers in the Royal Lecture Hall are all carefully selected by Luo Zhixue. They mainly select the best from various government schools. Top teachers.
It's not like the traditional dynasty where the court officials are directly appointed as teachers...
After a year of adaptation, when they reach the age of seven, they begin to live and study in the Royal Lecture Hall. They are only allowed one day off every five days to return to their mother and concubine.
Three years later, all princes were crowned princes when they reached the age of ten. At the same time, they moved out of the harem and moved into the Prince's Courtyard on the side of the palace. There were a lot of single-family courtyards for ordinary princes to live.
When he reaches the age of fifteen, he moves out of the Prince's Courtyard, is given a house and opens a mansion, and then gets married when it's time to get married... and has babies when it's time to have babies.
By the way, it is a serious crime for the prince to leave the capital (Yingtian Mansion) for fifty miles without any reason.
Of course, the prince is an exception!
When the prince turned ten years old, he moved directly into the East Palace. As the prince, although he continued to study at the Royal Lecture Hall, when he got a little older, he often followed Luo Zhixue to observe government affairs.
But for now, most of Luo Zhixue's dozen princes are still young, and only the eldest son of the emperor, King Luo Xie of Jin, has actually left the palace and opened a mansion.
The only one who got married was King Luo Kai of Jin. One year after he left the palace, at the age of sixteen, he married the second daughter of Zuo Yingzhe, Duke of Liaoxi, Army Field Marshal, former Minister of Staff, and former Minister of Army Military Command. .
Zuo Yingzhe is also one of the only six dukes in the Great Chu Empire. There are only six dukes in the Great Chu Empire. Four of them were successively conferred for their meritorious service during the Unification War. They are Li Chengtong, Duke of Beiyou, and Huang Dingquan, Duke of Zhenxi. , Pingnan Gong Huang Xiangbin, Jianghan Gong Xu Zhixian.
Zuo Yingzhe was awarded the title of Duke of Western Liao during the War of Extermination of Eastern Capture and became the fifth Duke of the Great Chu Empire.
The last one is Han Ziping. This man was awarded the title of Marquis very early, but he waited until a few years ago to coordinate the two wars to destroy Zhungeer, and finally was awarded the title of Duke of Xiliang for his contribution to the destruction of the country.
The six people above are all the top military generals in the Chu Empire. They all have made great contributions, but they all have one characteristic, that is, they retired from active service after making great achievements...
These six dukes now basically have no actual positions except for one duke title.
This may seem like a bit of a waste of time, but in fact everyone is very satisfied with it, so the people have to say that Luo Zhixue treats the heroes well!
Because in the past twenty years, Luo Zhixue has not raised a butcher's knife against the founding heroes... As long as these top generals, mainly generals above the general level, are smarter and quickly hand over their military power, Then Luo Zhixue usually lets them stay in the center for a few years, and gives them the title of Minister of Counselor or Co-organizer, so that they can truly become ministers before they become officials. Before becoming officials, Luo Zhixue will often give them the title of marshal. The military rank fulfilled their dream of becoming marshals.
Then...retire and enjoy your glory and wealth!
As for those who refuse to go there, there will naturally be no good end, and people who really have this kind of mentality will often not be able to climb to the position of general, let alone enter the imperial study room and become an extremely popular minister.
If the early founding heroes wanted to stay in the army, that was fine... but don't expect to be promoted, and don't expect to hold positions of power.
Not to mention whether Luo Zhixue is willing or not, even the large group of brigadiers, major generals, lieutenant generals and even school officers who are waiting for promotion are not willing...
If a lot of generals from the founding period of the People's Republic of China don't quit the front line, how can they get to the top?
Who doesn’t want to become a general, a highly respected minister?
But the position of general in the Great Chu Empire only exists so much. You, the founder of the country, have always occupied it. How do you let the latecomers be promoted...
The most important thing is that these brigadier generals, major generals, and lieutenant generals were all killed together at the beginning of the Unification War, and they were also the founding generals of the country.
Due to many circumstances, the senior generals of the Chu Empire, especially those who were awarded the title of duke or marquis, have basically withdrawn from active service.
These people, as well as dozens of other counts and other nobles, also formed the main noble system in the Great Chu Empire.
Note that the nobles of the Da Chu Empire are not just military generals... only the dukes and marquises are military generals, but there are also many civil servants with titles below earl.
There are even scientists... There are such things as academic aristocrats in the Great Chu Empire.
Song Yingxing, the former dean of the Royal Institute of Technology and now a tenured professor, previously served as the director of the Teaching Materials Department of the Ministry of Ethical Education, the right minister of the Ministry of Ethical Education, the deputy dean of the Royal Institute of Technology, and the president of the Royal Institute of Technology. He was the president of the Royal Institute of Technology. He was awarded the title of earl during his tenure.
The reason for being awarded the title of earl was that it greatly promoted the development of science education in the Chu Empire and the development of scientific research in the empire.
Therefore, the aristocratic group of the Chu Empire was relatively complex. It was not a uniform military general like the Ming Dynasty, but an aristocratic system composed of military generals as the mainstay, civilian officials as the supplement, and then a bunch of scientists.
The total number of these nobles is about fifteen hundred, including six dukes, twenty-seven marquises, one hundred and thirty earls, more than three hundred and seventy viscounts, and thousands of barons.
Finally, there are a group of lords who have lifelong tenure but still belong to the ranks of the nobility. There are more of them. There are currently more than 3,000 people. The number of Lords fluctuates greatly, and the conditions for granting titles should be looser.
In addition to civil and military officials and scientists, even civilians who have made outstanding contributions can receive the title of Lord.
The most famous among them should be Luo Hua, the founder and supervisor of Luo Hua Shipyard. Although he is a businessman, he has made outstanding contributions to the shipbuilding industry, especially supplying many warships to the navy. He made a great contribution to the rib-hulled ship, so this man was canonized as a lord in the seventeenth year of Chengshun.
There is also Li Songyin, the current head of Li's Iron Company. The reason why this man was awarded the title of Lord is convincing... It's impossible to find any fault... In the past ten years, this man has been obsessed with charity and actively donated money and donations. He donated 150,000 Chu Yuan in one go during a severe drought in Jiangxi Province.
Over the years, the cumulative donations of cash and materials are estimated to exceed one million yuan.
This is not one million in the 21st century, but one million Chu Yuan in the seventeenth century. This was an era when the monthly salary of ordinary workers was only two or three yuan!
But this Li Songyin had donated millions of Chu yuan... Because of this, Luo Zhixue did not hesitate to give him the title of Lord after learning about it.
Although Li Songyin may have done these food gifts in order to gain a good reputation, or more to complete some political tasks... but the money he paid was real.
If others are dissatisfied, if you have the ability, you can also donate millions of dollars for disaster relief, building bridges and paving roads. In this way, Luo Zhixue will definitely confer a lord on you.
The above-mentioned top nobles, ordinary nobles, and life-long nobles all formed the aristocratic system of the Great Chu Empire.
The marriage partners of Luo Zhixue's princes and princesses were mainly selected from these nobles.
There were many nobles coming to visit the train test today, and there were also many unmarried noble children accompanying them. The Queen and the Queen wanted to select a few suitable people.
Especially to choose a suitable crown princess for her own son, Luo Zhixue's eldest son, Luo Li, the crown prince of the Eastern Palace of the Chu Empire.
Dong Gong is already sixteen years old this year, but the candidate for the Crown Princess has not been decided yet, which makes Queen Wang a little anxious.
But there is no good way to be anxious. After all, her son is not an ordinary prince, but the foundation of the Great Chu Empire. The one she wants to choose is not an ordinary crown prince and concubine, but the crown prince of the East Palace, the future mother of the empire.
But you have to be careful.
Empress Wang also had her eye on the daughters of several families before, but Luo Zhixue personally rejected them all. What a joke, one of these women is the daughter of top civil servants, although Luo Zhixue is not too worried Even if the civil servants are in trouble, relatives are in turmoil, etc., they are also willing to let their prince marry a daughter from a truly top scholarly family, but the problem is that she must also be willing to marry!
Luo Zhixue didn't even need to ask, he already knew that those co-organizers, counselors, and top scholarly families who were already highly respected ministers immediately dared to kill themselves in the main hall when they heard that their daughters were to be crown princesses. .
Because their first daughter married the prince, their second daughter had to beg for her bones.
In order to prevent his relatives from interfering in politics, Luo Zhixue generally did not reuse his relatives. Those concubines’ natal families never served more than the third rank. The fourth rank was their limit.
And Empress Wang actually wants to be the in-laws of the empire's top civil servants. This is tantamount to asking people to beg for their bones!
Compared with his daughter becoming the Crown Princess and Empress Dong in the future, his family's political ambitions and his lifelong reputation are obviously more important.
This is also some secular concept passed down from the Ming Dynasty, that is, civil servants with some political ambitions basically disdain to marry the royal family...or dare not!
Anyway, if you marry a girl, you will have to beg for a corpse or go to serve in a clan mansion. Most of them are not happy!
With this delay, the selection of the Crown Princess was delayed, but the Queen was also anxious...
Therefore, on such a grand occasion today, many unmarried children of powerful people appeared. While Queen Wang took many female family members to watch the train test, while talking, she also looked at the many unmarried legitimate daughters of powerful people who had been brought here.
While reading, I secretly made a note to see whose daughter would be suitable.
This time, Queen Wang learned wisely and did not find the daughters of those top civil servants... No, to be precise, they did not bring their daughters here either.
Instead, they focused on mid-level officials, military commanders and powerful groups.
She was counting on finding a few good candidates for daughter-in-law today.
By the way, I also selected one or two for the other older princes and princesses.
Time gradually passed, and at noon, the imperial luncheon began.
In the back, Queen Wang was still presiding over the meal, leading a group of female relatives to dine, while in the front, Luo Zhixue was the master, accompanied by a group of powerful and important ministers.
At the same time, Wu Pengyou, the person in charge of the high-pressure steam engine project and the train project, was invited by the Guangzhou Machinery Company to co-organize the project.
Unlike other important ministers who were more relaxed, Wu Pengyou was full of joy at today's lunch but also relatively reserved.
After all, he had never participated in such a high-level banquet in his life, even though officials from the Ministry of Etiquette had supplemented the banquet etiquette for him in advance to avoid being rude before the emperor.
But he was still very nervous about eating, so much so that he couldn't eat much at all after lunch. Before he had even taken a few bites, from the corner of his eye, he saw Luo Zhixue above him putting down his bowl and chopsticks, and taking a Got the tea cup!
He also hurriedly put down his bowl and chopsticks, and happened to hear Luo Zhixue say: "Wu Aiqing, don't be anxious, eat slowly and eat more!"
Wu Pengyou was a little frightened, so he just said, "I obey my decree", and then hurriedly lowered his head to eat...
This was obviously taking Luo Zhixue's words as his will and obeying them. Luo Zhixue was a little speechless about this, but he didn't say much. He could understand the nervousness of Wu Pengyou, a mid-level technocrat, when he was called to have dinner with the emperor.
But being able to say don't worry and eat slowly is already the limit of what Luo Zhixue can do. He can't really say a few words of comfort, right...
Wu Pengyou ate a few more hurriedly, and after the surrounding courtiers also put down their bowls and chopsticks, he also quickly put down their bowls and chopsticks.
At this time, he was actually only three-thirds full...
In fact, not only him, but even other important ministers who are familiar with Luo Zhixue and often receive banquets, few of them dare to eat seriously in such formal banquet occasions...most of them are Eat whatever you want.
So except for Luo Zhixue and the accompanying prince, the emperor's eldest son and a few others, everyone else actually didn't eat too much.
Of course, these people are basically experienced. They often eat some snacks and other things in advance to fill their stomachs before coming. After the banquet is over, some people will go back and have something to eat in private.
If you really want to treat this kind of banquet given by the emperor as an ordinary banquet and eat and drink freely, then you are a fool, because no one else is eating freely, but you are the only one who really eats and your belly is round, isn't it different from ordinary people? …
This is the most taboo thing to do in officialdom.
Your Majesty won't have any objections to you, but other ministers may have objections... I only ate a few bites, why do you dare to eat so much?
Luo Zhixue was well aware of this, but he wouldn't say anything specifically. It doesn't matter whether you like to eat or not...you can't starve these top dignitaries of the empire anyway.
As the waiters put away the food and each took a cup of tea, Luo Zhixue chatted with the courtiers who were closer to him.
Unlike the chat before the luncheon, which was attended only by the counselors, it was said to be chat, but in fact it was just discussing national policies. This time the chat was really chat.
The ministers around him are also nobles, mainly the Dukes and Marquises. Luo Zhixue is now chatting with Zuo Yingzhe, the son and daughter-in-law, about their children and grandchildren.
After his eldest son, King Jin, married Zuo Yingzhe's second daughter, the princess is now pregnant. If nothing else happens, his Luo Zhixue's first grandson or granddaughter will come to the world this year.
Although he has given birth to many sons and daughters, this is the first time he has grandchildren, so Luo Zhixue still paid a lot of attention.
Zuo Yingzhe is also looking forward to this grandson or granddaughter. Although the eldest son of the emperor, King Jin, is only the eldest son of a concubine and has no chance of becoming the prince, everyone knows that His Majesty loves this eldest son very much. King Jin was very popular with Luo Zhixue when he was a child. Love.
In addition, King Jin himself is also a docile person. He is very kind to his wife and his father-in-law Zuo Yingzhe.
Therefore, Zuo Yingzhe was also very concerned about the eldest son and his wife.
After chatting with Zuo Yingzhe, the son and daughter-in-law, about the grandchildren, Luo Zhixue chatted with other people, and they all talked about common things.
After chatting for a while, Luo Zhixue looked up at Wu Pengyou who was near the outside, and then said: "Wu Aiqing, come forward!"
Wu Pengyou immediately stepped forward and saluted: "I'm here!"
Luo Zhixue said: "Don't be too formal, it's a good thing!"
Luo Zhixue smiled as he spoke, and several of the imperial ministers around him also smiled.
During the chat just now, Luo Zhixue had already told these people that he would knight Wu Pengyou later.
This is also the imperial practice, and knighthood is given to some scientists who have made significant contributions in the field of scientific research.
Seeing His Majesty and several other important officials of the empire looking at him with smiles on their faces, Wu Pengyou vaguely guessed something even though he was a little nervous.
It must be because he successfully developed high-pressure steam engines and trains, and thus was rewarded for himself.
Therefore, I couldn’t help but look forward to it.
Luo Zhixue did not let Wu Pengyou wait too long, and immediately said: "I have always said that we must attach importance to scientific development and improve the treatment of scientific talents. In the past, we have also canonized many academic nobles. Today you have made a high-pressure steam engine and The train should also be closed!"
At this point, he paused for a moment and then said loudly: "The decree is that Wu Pengyou has developed high-pressure steam engines, trains and state-owned achievements. He will be specially named an imperial earl, given a house, and a reward of 10,000 yuan."
The first-class secretary of the Hanlin Academy Secretariat, who was on duty today, immediately came out and said: "I obey the order!"
The formal canonization process is naturally not just a few words, but also requires a formal canonization edict, registration, etc., and these matters will naturally be handled by the Hanlin Academy and the Ministry of Ethnic Affairs.
But Luo Zhixue said it directly today, so Wu Pengyou's status as an earl was already confirmed. When he heard that he was named an earl, Wu Pengyou was a little stunned.
He had expected that he would be knighted, but he did not expect that a count would come directly to him in one fell swoop. He thought it might be a lord, or even a baron or even a viscount.
count? He really didn't dare to think about it before!
But Wu Pengyou didn't dare to think about it, but it didn't mean that Luo Zhixue couldn't seal it.
In Luo Zhixue's view, the high-pressure steam engine and the continued development of trains and ships have a huge strategic impact that is greater than a million troops.
As the direct person in charge of the high-pressure steam engine project, Wu Pengyou can afford this treatment.
Of course, it is more to express an attitude to the outside world, that is, the empire and Luo Zhixue attach great importance to the development of scientific research.
Luo Zhixue just wants to tell those scientific talents to do research well, produce great results, and reach the top of their lives in minutes!
If you want to promote the development of science, there is nothing more straightforward than directly improving the treatment of scientists in all aspects.
After the news that Wu Pengyou was awarded the title of earl spreads, I am afraid that there will be a lot more students applying for the Royal Institute of Technology this year, and it will provide the empire with a large number of scientific talents with full potential.
(End of chapter)
